What You Need to Know About Speaker Cable

Update:12-10-2017

Summary:

The ancient argument of television quality has been rag […]

The ancient argument of television quality has been raging between enthusiasts since the dawn of time. Some people think that the quality of the speaker cable is as important as the quality of the Hi-Fi components they are connected to. Other lovers save their cash to buy budget cables and claim that they have no effect on sound quality.

So instead of poking our nose between the two opposing camps and braving the risk of being dragged into the ongoing battle, let's exclude the intense quarrel, but instead provides an overview of the speaker cable jargon, And gives some useful tips on how to buy your own.

The speaker cable is a wire for electrical connection between the speaker and the amplifier source. It has three key electrical characteristics: resistance, capacitance and inductance. Resistance is by far the most important property. The low resistance line allows more power to pass through the speaker coil, which means more power and more sound.

In general, when the resistance is greater than 5% of the speaker impedance, the resistance begins to affect the performance of the speaker. The resistance is affected by two key aspects of wire length and wire cross-sectional area. The shorter the wire, the smaller the resistance. The trick here is to minimize the length of the wire, but still be able to ensure that your speakers are separated. It is also important that the two speakers have the same wire length to ensure that they all have equal impedance values.

The cross-sectional area of ​​the wire is the thickness or size of the wire. The thicker the wire or the smaller the size, the smaller the resistance. Therefore, it is a combination of speaker impedance, length and specification that affects the resistance. The following table describes the recommended cable length, which will ensure that your cable has a resistance of less than 5% of the nominal impedance of the loudspeaker under different gauge measurements.